Like more than 7 million other Americans (7,155,422 to be exact), Alisa Beattie of Alpharetta, Ga., received a check for $18.04 from the Currency Conversion Fee class action lawsuit settlement I wrote about last month. Unlike those who thought the slightly odd-looking mailer was junk mail or a scam and tossed it, she deposited the check.

Ten days later, she received a letter from her bank telling her the check had bounced and she had been charged a $5 fee as a result. The letter she received from her bank said:

The following check, cashed or deposited on the above account, has been returned unpaid. The account has been charged for the check listed and a fee has been assessed.

Reason: Refer to Maker

What does “refer to maker” mean and why did the check bounce? The answer to both questions appears to be “Who knows?”

“Refer to maker is a chicken’s way out of returning a check because it doesn’t tell you anything,” says John Burnett, associate editor of BankersOnline.com. Burnett says he has seen ‘refer to maker’ used when banks can’t figure out a legitimate reason to return a check. “It may be the money had not been moved into this fund in time to pay that particular check,” he speculates. “It could be that the endorsement looked irregular, though very few endorsements are checked. ”

Get Your Free Credit Score & Monitoring

Burnett says Beattie should ask her bank to refund the fee, though he added that the bank isn’t legally obligated to do so.

Alisa Beattie's NSF Notice

Bonny E. Sweeney, an attorney with Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd LLP, one of the two firms that represented the plaintiffs in this case, told me the funds are indeed there to pay all the claims, and was mystified by the bounced check. David A. Langer, a senior associate with Berger & Montague, P.C., the other firm that represented the plaintiffs, also confirmed that there is plenty of money available to honor these checks, but warned that with over ten million checks going out in this settlement, “hiccups” are bound to happen. Langer directed Beattie to the CCFSettlement.com website, where she was instructed to fill out a form describing the problem.

Beattie isn’t happy with the additional work. She’s worried that even if she does get another check, she could face the same problem again, along with another fee. “I am the one who has to request the check again and maybe they will be able to get the money back to me,” she says. “It kind of makes me feel like I’m the one to blame. They should make sure it’s done right.”

Sweeney told me the largest check issued in the settlement was for $2,528,665.76. Hopefully that one won’t bounce.

Image: CarbonNYC, via Flickr.com

Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Sign up for our Credit Report Card and receive the latest tips & advice from our team of 50+ credit and money experts as well as a FREE Credit Score and action plan. Sign up now.

Gerri Detweiler focuses on helping people understand their credit and debt, and writes about those issues, as well as financial legislation, budgeting, debt recovery and savings strategies. She is also the co-author of Debt Collection Answers: How to Use Debt Collection Laws to Protect Your Rights, and Reduce Stress: Real-Life Solutions for Solving Your Credit Crisis as well as host of TalkCreditRadio.com.

Comments on articles and responses to those comments are not provided or commissioned by a bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by a bank advertiser. It is not a bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

Please note that our comments are moderated, so it may take a little time before you see them on the page. Thanks for your patience.

Certain credit cards and other financial products mentioned in this and other sponsored content on Credit.com are Partners with Credit.com. Credit.com receives compensation if our users apply for and ultimately sign up for any financial products or cards offered.

Hello, Reader!

Thanks for checking out Credit.com. We hope you find the site and the journalism we produce useful. We wanted to take some time to tell you a bit about ourselves.

Our People

The Credit.com editorial team is staffed by a team of editors and reporters, each with many years of financial reporting experience. We’ve worked for places like the New York Times, American Banker, Frontline, TheStreet.com, Business Insider, ABC News, NBC News, CNBC and many others. We also employ a few freelancers and more than 50 contributors (these are typically subject matter experts from the worlds of finance, academia, politics, business and elsewhere).

Our Reporting

We take great pains to ensure that the articles, video and graphics you see on Credit.com are thoroughly reported and fact-checked. Each story is read by two separate editors, and we adhere to the highest editorial standards. We’re not perfect, however, and if you see something that you think is wrong, please email us at editorial team [at] credit [dot] com,

The Credit.com editorial team is committed to providing our readers and viewers with sound, well-reported and understandable information designed to inform and empower. We won’t tell you what to do. We will, however, do our best to explain the consequences of various actions, thereby arming you with the information you need to make decisions that are in your best interests. We also write about things relating to money and finance we think are interesting and want to share.

In addition to appearing on Credit.com, our articles are syndicated to dozens of other news sites. We have more than 100 partners, including MSN, ABC News, CBS News, Yahoo, Marketwatch, Scripps, Money Magazine and many others. This network operates similarly to the Associated Press or Reuters, except we focus almost exclusively on issues relating to personal finance. These are not advertorial or paid placements, rather we provide these articles to our partners in most cases for free. These relationships create more awareness of Credit.com in general and they result in more traffic to us as well.

Our Business Model

Credit.com’s journalism is largely supported by an e-commerce business model. Rather than rely on revenue from display ad impressions, Credit.com maintains a financial marketplace separate from its editorial pages. When someone navigates to those pages, and applies for a credit card, for example, Credit.com will get paid what is essentially a finder’s fee if that person ends up getting the card. That doesn’t mean, however, that our editorial decisions are informed by the products available in our marketplace. The editorial team chooses what to write about and how to write about it independently of the decisions and priorities of the business side of the company. In fact, we maintain a strict and important firewall between the editorial and business departments. Our mission as journalists is to serve the reader, not the advertiser. In that sense, we are no different from any other news organization that is supported by ad revenue.

Visitors to Credit.com are also able to register for a free Credit.com account, which gives them access to a tool called The Credit Report Card. This tool provides users with two free credit scores and a breakdown of the information in their Experian credit report, updated twice monthly. Again, this tool is entirely free, and we mention that frequently in our articles, because we think that it’s a good thing for users to have access to data like this. Separate from its educational value, there is also a business angle to the Credit Report Card. Registered users can be matched with products and services for which they are most likely to qualify. In other words, if you register and you find that your credit is less than stellar, Credit.com won’t recommend a high-end platinum credit card that requires an excellent credit score You’d likely get rejected, and that’s no good for you or Credit.com. You’d be no closer to getting a product you need, there’d be a wasted inquiry on your credit report, and Credit.com wouldn’t get paid. These are essentially what are commonly referred to as "targeted ads" in the world of the Internet. Despite all of this, however, even if you never apply for any product, the Credit Report Card will remain free, and none of this will impact how the editorial team reports on credit and credit scores.

Your Stories

Lastly, much of what we do is informed by our own experiences as well as the experiences of our readers. We want to tell your stories if you’re interested in sharing them. Please email us at story ideas [at] credit [dot] com with ideas or visit us on Facebook or Twitter.